Another October is almost over, and I can’t help but be excited about Halloween coming up in several weeks. It’s one of my favorite holidays. There’s something about the fun and fantasy, the candy and candlelight, the storytelling and lure that gets me as giddy as my 5-year-old around this time of year.

For now, I’m sure that many churches can’t help the generational divides that exist in their communities. With a concerted effort and some intentional faith sharing, however, I am confident that we can grow closer to one another and together grow closer to Christ even when it is difficult to do so.

In an article in The Atlantic Monthly, author and editor-at-large Jonathon Rauch recalled a time he attended a dinner party and was asked about his religion. Rauch, a self-proclaimed atheist, considered what to say and realized that atheists were no different than theists in that both sets of people try to convince others of their beliefs, seek converts, and build ideological communities.

All of us have our own image of Christ ingrained in our imagination or our spiritual mind’s eye. It’s the image that confronts us when we close our eyes in prayer. It’s the one representing He whom we worship when moved by a particular hymn or praise chorus.

I’ve spent a lot of time with Jeremiah these past couple of days. You know him. He’s the prophet whom God called to declare judgment upon Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, around 600 BC. He’s the prophet who faced traumatic adversity, house arrest, and exile. He is the one known as the “Weeping Prophet.”

The extraordinary and history-making cold spell we experienced several weeks ago reminded me of a time that one of my good friends posted on Facebook that, with all this cold weather, human-induced climate change is certain to be a hoax.

A recent report released by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution (as told by The Christian Century) shows that the religious landscape of the United States is quite diverse and will shift in fundamental ways over the next two generations.

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of talking theology with a Christian who is in the Reformed tradition. Actually, he asked me questions pertaining to theology, and I tried to keep up the best I could by fumbling through answers and trying to remember what I learned in seminary.

Over the past few weeks, my wife and I have been catching up on the classic “Back to the Future” trilogy. We haven’t seen the movies for quite some time, and its been a real treat to see how that DeLorean time machine brings all kind of trouble.

One of the greatest pieces of advice I received in seminary came from a veteran pastor who told us to have some good heroes and mentors. He knew that vocational ministers get lonely at times and that we need people to look up to who understand our profession.

Everyone's life deserves some recognition when it's ended. What seems like a boring list to us was very meaningful to the ancients. Even the lists of ancestral names in the New Testament -- like those found in the gospels recording Jesus' ancestry -- carried great meaning.

This weekend many churches will observe Palm Sunday and sing the classic hymn, "Glory, Laud, and Honor," penned by Theodulf of Orleans. It is a high-church, soaring hymn that lifts hearts heavenward and voices aloft.

Every February, Baptist Women in Ministry encourages churches to celebrate women ministers and invite women clergy to preach. It is a time to recognize that women and men alike, equal in partnership, are critical in spreading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Paying attention is a spiritual discipline. When my wife, her family and I lived in South Florida, we teased my mother-in-law about the fact that she claimed to have seen "white goats" at the nearby on-ramp to Interstate 95.

In 1942, the Second World War was raging throughout Europe. During that time, the villagers of a little town of Le Chambone, France, decided to re-define who their neighbors were and save Jewish refugees from Nazi genocide.